About Me

Working in DRCongo

I started working in field primatology in 2002. I have worked on projects in Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, with the bulk of my research taking place in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

My background is in captive chimpanzee care and management, having worked at Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Entebbe, Uganda, and having managed an interim sanctuary in collaboration with AWARE-Africa and the Jane Goodall Institute in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo.

I have also worked on a number of laboratory projects, including a genetic analysis on allelic variability, studying the MHC of polar mammals under Dr. Diana Weber at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

AMNH is also home to over 10,000 human skulls, many hundreds of which I catalogued as an Evolutionary Biology undergraduate at Columbia University.

The only way to travel

My current study topic is the impact of increased artisanal mining on chimpanzee populations in rural DRCongo. I have established a statistically significant data set, showing that miners are consuming more primate bushmeat than are villagers (in process) and have discovered a pathogenic human strongyloid in the chimpanzee fecal matter that I collected.

As the human density of this rural area shifts deeper into the forests and the human-nonhuman primate overlap increases, the emergence of new infectious zoonotic diseases becomes more likely.

I still believe strongly in the importance of continued research in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but until I can return to DRCongo, I am working at the United Nations for the Great Apes Survival Partnership (GRASP) out of the United Nations Environment Programme offices in Nairobi, Kenya.